Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) combined with influenza is the eighth leading cause
of death in the United States. This article examines the literature to understand
and describe whether technology implementation has impacted the outcomes of patients
with CAP. We conducted an electronic search of PubMed and scanned references of articles
meeting inclusion criteria. Twenty-six articles were included in this review. We surveyed
this literature for answers to the following questions: Can technology be used to
improve quality of care and guideline compliance in CAP? How can we overcome the behavioral
bottleneck that prevents adoption of computerized decision support systems? How reliable
are our data in the era of electronic medical records? What are the risks associated
with technology implementation? No articles demonstrated that technology implementation
improves outcomes in the care of patients with CAP.
Keywords
pneumonia - technology - computerized decision support - electronic medical records